[arsachdeva]

Hi fellow members,

Well, the thing is I am new here and am eager to start my journey on this forum. So, sharing my experience of Booking Tata Punch Adventure in Atomic Orange.

Unusual color choice, right?

Well, a few friends questioned my choice already so no judgements required. I know I am odd.

I am a fresh driver at 30 and was looking for a car to call my first.

I tried looking for second hand models but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on pre-2016 models. Naturally, didn’t like the cost-convenience ratio of new second hands and thought of booking a new one.

I was a fan of new-gen tata cars for the simple combo of safety and looks. Had punch in mind for a year and finally booked the car on 8th February this year.

I am from Udaipur and talked with two dealerships about mu choice:

- Chambal Motors, Surajpole
- SP Automobiles

Chambal guy wasn’t too keen on helping us with demo and specifics. He even denied giving me a time for test drive saying he will call back when a car is available (or asked me to visit some other day).

FYI, I am still to receive a call from him.

I thought of going to other dealership which was SP. The sales guy there was more professional, gave a thorough demo, showed me ins and outs and even promised to arrange for at home test drive a day later (as there was no car available).

I was happy with the attitude.

So, two days later I took a test drive at home and loved the car, finally.

Booked it on spot but there was a catch.

I informed him about my color choice on which he got confused (and apprehensive). The thing is - i asked the color question during my enquiry too on which the guy told that they have a large chain of dealerships and he would arrange for delivery within this month for sure.

Now, I booked it, reconfirming that my orange punch would be delivered in Feb itself and paid the booking amount.

He asked me to sign a document stating I am myself asking for the color and there would be no change in my decision. I was fine with it.

Now 10 days after booking, I get a call from the guy telling me his manager wants me to write another application about color and only then we may proceed.

I was furious and asked if he was waiting for 10 days that I will change my choice. He said that the order is gone to company but he cannot assure me of a date (10 days after I booked) and now his manager wants a reassurance that I will buy the orange car.

Anyway, I asked him a couple of questions, the answers of which made me feel that the showroom is scared to get allotment and rejection from my side on looking the car in person.

After a couple of hours of discussing on phone, he confirmed that if I change the color now, he can do it and promised me a delivery in the next week. But for orange, he cannot promise me anything (which he promised before booking). Plus, I felt judged and odd that I am paying the money to buy something which is my choice, why are they interfering.

Anyway, I discussed it with family and we realized color is not a deal breaker and changed my booking to Tropical Mist.

Remind you, this is day before yesterday evening.

Yesterday, I got a call that my billing is done and I might get my car this week itself.

The sales guy told me that he was right to suggest in booking a ‘conventional’ color.

I get it - they have stock lying that they want to push. But what’s with this hate for colors that are not conventional.

I mean, as adults, we are sensible enough to make choices. And if my choice is wrong, I’ll learn from it. At least I have a right to experiment.

So, want to understand what’s it with dealerships (and people) pushing you to fit into the ‘black, white, grey’ stereotype?

Anyone having a similar experience? Or have an opinion, do share please.

PS: I am a bit annoyed at friends judging me for odd choices all my life. So, if you want to judge, please do all you can (and write about it even) but make sure to answer my question - what’s it with judgment about odd colors?

I know about resale value, hardships for dealerships and all other sane reasons. What to do if still I want to buy a car in an unconventional color?

[Safari Persona]

To me, it sounds like they were simply averting the risk of ordering the car on your behalf only for you to back away at the last minute, leaving them with a tough-to-sell color and potentially incurring a significant loss.

Not justifying what they did, but I don't think they were being judgmental. I honestly think they couldn't care less about which colors their customers are opting for as long their bottomline isn't affected.


As for our personal experience, we recently booked a new car and had a preference for the blue color one anyway, but when we made an attempt to see the others colors in life before we made our final decision, we were pushed really strongly by the sales agent that blue was absolutely the best color and that we should go with it. He seemed genuine, but I can't discount the possibility that they were just trying to push out whatever was available the fastest.

[revvharder]

Actually it happens a lot of time that a customer orders an off beat color that is not available with the dealership and neither the color is selling like hotcakes so in a lot of cases dealership in order to reduce their risks try to get more than the booking amount so that the customer does not back off as if they back off the dealer gets stuck with it and god knows for how many months and then there are the weather elements to beat when the car is in the stockyard for extended periods of time.

Earlier it used to be the case with black color and now there are all sorts of color on offer by the manufacturers.

In your case the dealership could have handled it more professionally but i would completely understand their stance too, there is no stereotype it's just wafer thin margins and coupled with their experience they have to take these things into account too.

About judging on colors i don't think anyone on the forum would judge you on the basis of the color of car you have, we have a very diverse number of cars on the forum from Nano/800 to cars costing crores and everyone is equally enthusiastic about their car as the next forum member.

As to what to do, you still can tell the dealership you want that color and tell them you can and you will send the email to them and take delivery of that very car subject to the car passing PDI.

[FLYBOYSID]

BTW I like the colour you chose. I used to own a Sunlight Copper coloured SX4. And No I don’t feel I am odd.

Slightly off topic but not too far.

One thing that i gathered so far is that booking any car with Tata Motors is a pain. The end product may make you smile but the wait is shrouded in mystery. I brought a Taigo last year for my dad and am currently waiting for my Safari. My dealer was/is apprehensive even about the Royal Blue coloured Safari.

In both the cases, Tiago in Pune and Safari now in Kanpur, after booking the vehicle there is an uncanny silence from the dealers end. Unlike Mahindra which gives you updates for your bookings (or so i Believe) Tata motors has no such platform. No updates makes the wait very boring if I may say.

I so wish Tata motors could update individual customers somehow. This would have given you as well as your dealer a little more transparency with respect to your booking. As for me, I would like to hear a possible waiting period instead of “ Sir, ussi din order laga diya tha company mein. GM sahab khud dekh rahe hai aapka order.” At just three weeks into the booking, it may be a bit premature for me to be expecting my car, but the itch can’t really be helped.

[Bluengel180]

My understanding is that the car companies wait for enough bookings to fill in a day at the assembly line for less popular colours.

Have had this experience multiple times. Kia had a waiting of 6 months plus for black with no commitment on delivery date. Other colours were readily available. Same with Tata and cocoa sparkle, which they discontinued before I could get an allocation.

[FLYBOYSID]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

My understanding is that the car companies wait for enough bookings to fill in a day at the assembly line for less popular colours.

This is known and is absolutely logical. Just that there should be a bit of transparency and ability to predict.

[condor]

Both dealerships have behaved in a way that's not out of the ordinary. The reasons why they do what they did are already mentioned above.

If you want only that color, ask the current dealership to check if that color is available somewhere in the state. If not, call up dealerships invyour state and also adjacent states for that color. I know one instance last year when someone wanted a specific color of Ignis AMT, and this wasnt available in the state. Fresh booking would have taken 2-3 months (as said by the local dealerships.. again time based on demand for that color from across the country, because Maruti will run a batch of that color only if they have the required number of bookings).

The person found a car in Goa, and got it across with a temp booking over to Bangalore. Final registration was done in BLR. A friend and fellow TBHP-ian had gone to pick up the car from the dealership in Goa.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by arsachdeva

I informed him about my color choice on which he got confused (and apprehensive)...He asked me to sign a document stating I am myself asking for the color and there would be no change in my decision. I was fine with it......and now his manager wants a reassurance that I will buy the orange car.....Yesterday, I got a call that my billing is done and I might get my car this week itself....The sales guy told me that he was right to suggest in booking a ‘conventional’ color.

I would have been mighty pissed off with that, "I told you so" dialogue.

With the current market conditions, I am not sure. But in a normal situation I would have suggested to be adamant on your colour choice. 3 out of 5 times if you are adamant, the stock alloted comes earlier than expected. They will be unwilling to take risk or try to clear of their stock, but just stand by your choice of colour. It is for nothing that the company is offering you colour 'options'.

When we booked our WagonR, we were pretty flexible on the colour options. Blue or beige or whatever we could get our hands on. Two days later the SA called and said they had a black one in stock. We had never seen a black WagonR before and we actually drove to the showroom just to look at the colour. Got the car within 5 days of booking. Had never owned a black car before and we were pretty satisfied with the look. Shiny black, light green tint(suggested by mum) and beige seats. People commented it didn't look like the budget car that it was. But a few weeks later and VOILA!!! Our small town was peppered with brand new black WagonRs!!! I noticed that people who bought other colours had the "25th anniversary" badge of Maruti in the bootlid, while the black one didn't have. Turns out the dealer had pushed unsold black stock to people who didn't want to wait. We were not bothered as we loved the colour, but teen me was bothered that we didn't get the '25th anniversary ' badge.

On the other hand when we booked the Etios, we were adamant on pearl white VXD. Two days later the SA called and said that it would take atleast a month for delivery and he offered a white GD or a silver VXD. Rest of us were okay with the silver but mum was adamant on the pearl white. Either get us one or cancel the booking. The next day they had a pearl white VXD coming from the factory and we took delivery a few days later.

[simplysim]

The confirmation thing happened with me as well, but for bs6 diesel instead of colour. I had to send a confirmation e-mail and verbal confirmation multiple times that I would not back.

Reason: the dealers find such less selling cars difficult to sell it to others, and even if they find potential customers in some time not many accept older cars.

[StarVector]

I also have had a similar experience with VW Thane when we were looking for Vento two years ago. We wanted to get the Vento in Sunset Red colour which was not available in stock at that time. This was a extremely rare combination and I have myself not seen many Vento's in this shade. Understandably, the SA was quite apprehensive of our decision. Though he promised to get us the car in the desired shade in 20-25 days but he requested us not to change our mind after seeing the car in person. He explained that it may be difficult for the dealership to sell the car later if we didn't like the colour. But they we very helpful and never pushed us to get the car in any other shade, infact they even allowed us to visit their stockyard at Mira Road to checkout all the available cars. We managed to see a Polo in Sunset Red, and all of us agreed on the that colour.

Colour choices are extremely personal although they do get influenced by our family. Seeing a car in a particular shade in person helps us to make a more informed decision, perhaps you could have checked with other dealers in your vicinity if they had the car in stock. It is unfortunate that the your SA could not get your car in the desired shade.

[puntra800]

I guess , with TATA Motors the issue is not only with the offbeat colours. When I booked my Punch(It was a Grey with Black roof) I used to receive a call from the SA almost every other day saying white is available , blue is available do you want to change it . I had to politely tell him that I am sticking to the colour I chose but still was getting a call if I had reconsidered my colour choice. Eventually I did get the colour I had booked. When I got a little chatty with the SA , he was mentioning something like each dealer gets allotted a few set of vehicles and they do try to push the ones which they have a lot of stock despite the customer booking some other colour(Not sure how much of this is true though).

[daksh0510]

Originally Posted by arsachdeva

I know about resale value, hardships for dealerships and all other sane reasons. What to do if still I want to buy a car in an unconventional color?

In my opinion, the dealership's doubt was not wrong. They always hesitate in ordering these kind of "unconventional colors" as in the end, they are also running a business and do not want to incur a loss if you reject the car.

The same scenario happened to me sometime back when I booked the BS4 Tata Nexon in orange color. It was December so they informed me that my choice might take time as their production plant had been stopped because of the year-end. They had a blue and a silver car in transit and said that they would only be able to deliver those 2 colors to me in December. Any other option would push my booking to January. I needed the car urgently, thus I opted for the blue color (which was my second favorite).

If you had the time to wait, you could have told them that you will only take delivery in your specific color and they would have delivered the car to you.

Ps.: I agree that even though the dealership was not wrong, they were also being pushy, which they shouldn't have been.

[Brumby]

Originally Posted by arsachdeva

PS: I am a bit annoyed at friends judging me for odd choices all my life. So, if you want to judge, please do all you can (and write about it even) but make sure to answer my question - what’s it with judgment about odd colors?

I know about resale value, hardships for dealerships and all other sane reasons. What to do if still I want to buy a car in an unconventional color?

The dealership is into a business for profits, they do not judge anyone but take precautions based on experience and statistical data they have by selling cars.

I remember that during my purchase of an Innova in the year 2008, I asked if I could buy a petrol variant of Innova, the sales person said, it's made on order and a full payment (non-refundabke) is to be made to confirm the order.

Those were the times when diesel vehicles were in high demand and buying a petrol MPV in India was quite rare.

The dealerships have to pay to the manufacturer when they order a car, though we only pay the booking amount. Since we have an option to cancel the booking, the dealerships probably do not have the same option once the order is placed. It's very much logical on their part to protect their interest and get a confirmation from the buyer for an odd variant.

Cheers.

[PrasannaDhana]

Well I booked the same Car in the same colour 2 days back.

They had one at their showroom floor in the same colour and variant of my choice. Sadly, it was October 2022 manufactured car. For Punch, which is a model with good market demand, a car sitting duck for 4 months on the showroom shows how people avoid offbeat colours.

I would have picked it if not for the new better smoother RDE BS6.2 engines launched by Tata recently.

Regarding the Atomic Orange colour choice, my dad loved it and it was the same colour we wanted our sumo grande to be in 2009 when we booked. Due to long waiting period for orange, we went ahead with Blue that time.

BTW my dealer has placed the order. I am well accustomed to the sales team, so there has been no instances of pushing me to change to other colours.

[karanddd]

Indian car buyers are extremely conservative regarding colours. Driving around in India you see a sludge of white and grey everywhere you look, even black is rare. Only when you're abroad do you see cars in neon colours, or bright reds, greens and yellows. I suppose there must be some explanation for it. You see the same thing re. exteriors of houses, in Mexico City houses are painted lavender and pink and many beautiful colours, but in Delhi you see mostly just a hotchpotch of off-white and beige. Maybe we're a gloomier people.